Satan’s Tail. Dale Brown
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bomb. The bomb, loosened from the underside of the robot aircraft just at the start of the maneuver, skipped through the air and landed about two meters from its target, the radar van that had been controlling the antiaircraft installation. As the simulation continued, the robot aircraft spun back down toward the ground, recording the damage its bomb had done.
‘The concept definitely works,’ said Zen, pushing back from the panel. ‘In the computer, at least.’
‘If it works on the computer, it’ll work in real life,’ said Jennifer Gleason.
‘I’m not debating that,’ said Zen. ‘I just don’t see how it’s worth it moneywise to turn the U/MFs into bombers. A guidance kit on a dumb bomb is a heck of a lot cheaper. And having a real airplane gives you a heck of a lot more flexibility.’
‘I don’t do philosophy,’ said Jennifer. ‘Just computers.’
Zen was in charge of the Flighthawk U/MF-3 project, a responsibility that included not only the present generation of high-speed robot interceptors but also the next generation U/MF-4, which had just flown the simulation. The U/MF-4 was a small, slightly faster aircraft that incorporated everything they’d learned from using the Flighthawk in combat over the past two years. It could remain airborne at least twice as long without refueling, and would be able to operate approximately fifty miles from its mother plane. Its autonomous mode – the developers’ fancy word for flying on its own – was much improved, thanks largely to the refined onboard tactics library developed from the battles Zen had flown with the U/MF-3s. It could also carry a heavier payload, a capacity intended not for bombs but rather a lightweight though powerful chemical laser, which so far had not made it past the conceptual stage.
All in all, the U/MF-4 was a better aircraft than the U/MF-3. But was it better enough to justify the billions of dollars it would take to field a fleet of them?
If it could be used as an attack aircraft as well as an interceptor, maybe – at least that was the thinking at the Pentagon, which had urged the bomb trial.
Urged as in ordered, with a bit of politeness and necessary decorum thrown in. Zen hated Washington politics, but it was a necessary part of life here.
And not just his. Of the three men and two women currently assigned to the sketch phase of the project, at least two would be let go if the U/MF-4 project were put completely on hold. They were all highly skilled workers, engineers who at least in theory ought to have no problem finding another job. But theory and reality didn’t always match. And the stakes would be a hundred times greater at the next stage.
‘I can have the simulation transferred to video for you by tomorrow morning,’ said Jennifer.
‘Thanks.’ With everything squared away, Zen went up the ramp to the elevators and then out through the large Megafortress hangar that had been cut into the Nevada desert like an oversized curbstone. The warm air – it was a balmy eighty degrees – felt good after the filtered and AC’d bunker air he’d been breathing the last few hours.
‘Hey, Major, how’s it going?’ asked Captain Michael Latrec as Zen rolled toward the Taj. Latrec was a flight surgeon – an Air Force doctor whose specialty was dealing with flight crews and the sometimes peculiar effects of air travel. He probably spent as much time dealing with the common cold as anything else, but then again, a runny nose at Mach 3 and 65,000 feet could hardly be called common. ‘You believe this weather?’
‘Love it,’ said Zen.
‘It’ll snow tomorrow, watch.’
‘Probably.’
‘How’s Mack?’
‘I busted his chops pretty bad,’ said Zen.
‘You did? You busted on him?’
‘Nah. I just pushed him, like I said I would.’
‘You don’t have to ride him,’ said Latrec. ‘More like encourage him. Get him to work out, keep at it, that kind of thing.’
‘That’s what I’m doing. You sure it’s all in his head?’
‘No. I didn’t say it was all in his head. He definitely sustained injuries. It’s just – he may need encouragement to keep going. You were encouraged, and I thought you could give him the same motivation. Been there, done that, that sort of thing.’
‘I’m working on it, Doc.’
‘Mack probably appreciates it.’
‘That’s not going to happen,’ said Zen. ‘Unless he gets a brain transplant.’
‘I think you’ll be surprised,’ said Latrec. ‘Going through something like this …’
Latrec’s voice trailed off, obviously because he realized he was talking to an expert on the effects of ‘something like this.’
‘Don’t sweat it, Doc. And by the way, you owe me a case of Anchor Steam from the World Series. I haven’t forgotten.’
‘Oh yeah. Stinking Marlins.’ Latrec was from Cleveland, and, after the Yankees, hated the Florida Marlins with a passion. Zen didn’t particularly care, but he knew a good bet when he saw one – the Marlins were underdogs and he was able to leverage a six-pack against a case.
‘I’ve been thinking about changing the beer,’ said Zen. ‘I’ve been drinking these British beers since Brunei. Samuel Smith. Maybe the Oatmeal Stout.’
‘Jeez, where am I going to find British beer around here?’
‘Plenty of places in Vegas,’ said Zen. ‘And if not, schedule a house call to an air base in London.’
Dog waited impatiently for the last techie to finish adjusting the in-flight diagnostic monitor – a fancy name for a black box flight recorder – on the right side of his aircraft so he could start the engine on the XF-16Z, the tester he was scheduled to have gotten off the ground forty-five minutes ago.
Last minute technical glitches and engineering fussiness were part of a test pilot’s routine, and Dog was only too happy to put off the pile of pressing bureaucratic details awaiting him over at his office. Technically, taking a turn as a pilot in the heavy test schedule wasn’t part of Dog’s job at Dreamland, and it had been pointed out several times that spending too much time in the cockpit might keep him from the admittedly more important job of running the base and its Whiplash component. But from Dog’s point of view, what was the sense of being a pilot if you didn’t fly? Why had the government spent something approaching a million dollars training him and keeping his skills sharp if not to strap Combat Edge flight gear onto his body on a regular basis? And besides, putting his posterior against an ACES II ejection seat every few days or so made the fact that it spent so much time against a cushioned leather seat almost bearable.
Almost.
But the delay was threatening his plans to have dinner with Jennifer. The two hadn’t had much time to see each other since the end of the so-called ‘Armageddon’ mission. Their deployment to the kingdom of Brunei and Malaysia had interrupted his campaign to more actively ‘woo’ Jennifer, a campaign that he had undertaken with the planning and precision a top pilot would put into a bombing mission.
Not that bombing was like wooing. Not at all. He had to remind himself not to make that comparison to her, at all costs.
‘Wooing.’ Was that even a word people used anymore? Was the word ‘dating’ more appropriate? But dating women seemed like something he had done a million years before. And besides, dating didn’t really cover what he wanted to do. He wanted her to understand, to feel, that he loved her. And was ‘wooing.’ Not bombing.
‘Just another minute, Colonel,’ yelled the engineer, disappearing back over the side of the heavily modified F-16.
The Z, as the XF-16Z was called, had started life as an F-16D, a two-seat version of the versatile fighter-bomber